The Political Economic Analysis of Prosumption on Digital Platforms
Although the prosumption among users of digital platforms has garnered significant academic interest,the definition of prosumption given by Fox et al,is overly broad.From the perspective of Marxist political economy,prosumption can be divided into four types:pure usage behavior by platform users,creative content posting behavior,behavior of obtaining profits through content posting,and behavior of being employed by a platform or a third party to create content.The former two types are not production behaviors in the sense of political economy,while the latter two types are both production behaviors and value-creating behaviors.The data created by the former two types of users actually come from the labor of employers of a platform company,and users do not create value during the platform usage process.If there is no relationship of capitalist employment between the platform and the user,the user is not directly exploited by the platform.However,digital platforms do benefit a lot from the data created by user behaviors,because these platforms not only obtain the rent of the value distribution of production factors through monopolizing data,but also obtain more surplus value through the investment of financial capital.Only by exploring the mechanism behind such prosumption can we resolve the current contradiction between users and platforms and thus contribute to the healthy development of the digital economy.
digital platformsprosumptionpolitical economyvalue distribution
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